Follow PR Daily on:

Writers, 25 tips for using AP style this spring

The days are getting warmer, the snow (that never came) may never come, graduations and weddings will soon consume our weekends, and your favorite baseball team is returning to the diamond.

Aside from holding a box of tissues tending to allergies, all signs point to spring. Here’s how to write about it in Associated Press style.

Following are some spring-related terms from the AP Stylebook to keep your writing clean:

1. alma mater

2. alumnus, alumni, alumna, alumnae: Use alumnus (alumni in the plural) when referring to a man who has attended a school. Use alumna (alumnae) when referring to a woman who has attended a school. Use alumni when referring to a group of men and women.

3. April Fool’s Day: Correct style of the April 1 event—no joke.

4. Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Science: A bachelor’s degree or a bachelor’s is acceptable in any reference.

5. bazaar, bizarre: Bazaar is a fair; bizarre means unusual.

6. bride, bridegroom, bridesmaid: Bride is appropriate in wedding stories, but use wife or spouse in other circumstances.

7. clean up (verb); cleanup (noun and adjective): We clean up the yard after winter. I hit cleanup in tonight’s game.

8. daylight saving time: Not savings, and no hyphen.

9. dean’s list: Lowercase in all uses. He is a dean’s list student. She made the spring dean’s list.

10. Easter egg: A hidden “surprise” in a program, a website, a DVD or a TV show such as an extra level of a computer game or a message.

11. ERA: Acceptable in all references for baseball’s earned run average.

12. Good Friday: The Friday before Easter.

13. hit and run (verb); hit-and-run (noun; adjective):The coach told him to hit and run. He scored on a hit-and-run.